You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Motorists on the highways and bi-ways of this great nation of ours.
On a recent trip to Memphis, Tennessee I encountered as much frustration as any driver can.
I was so exasperated, I wanted to stick forks in my eye, but that would have required me to remove my hands from 10 & 2.
What am I talking about? Cars speeding up as I tried to pass. Cars braking in the fast lane as I approached them. Trucks pulling out into the left lane to pass another truck that is basically going the same speed.
It was a bad episode of Smokey and the Bandit where I was Smokey and everyone was trying to run me into the median.
Interstate 40 is a major East / West thoroughfare. Around Nashville or Memphis it opens up to three and four lanes. The problem exists in the bucolic stretches between the major urban centers. It is here in the great expanse of truck stops and Jesus Saves signs that the asphalt is two lanes wide which spells big time trouble.
Two lanes means trucks and cars and idiots and cops all dancing a crazy dance of what’s next? Two lanes means jack rabbits and slow pokes meeting in a bumper to bumper dance of Armageddon.
How impatient is that guy? How reckless is that driver? It can be infuriating and exasperating all at the same time.
I took driver’s education. Didn’t it say somewhere that you drive to the right and pass on the left? I’m pretty sure that was in the first chapter somewhere.
But Americans appear to be dyslexic. Left? Right? Slow? Pass? Who cares. It’s my world and your just passing through it, seems to be the attitude out there in the fast lane.
Those laws don’t exist on I-40. Too many motorists languish in the left lane on I-40. They talk on their cell phones in the left lane on I-40. They admire the changing leaves in the left lane on I-40.
I have so many things to do in the left lane, Why worry about you coming up hard and fast on my SIX? Why pull to the right and show fellow motorists some courtesy? If you want to drive slowly, drive slowly, but pull over Jack Ass!
The speed limit is 70 mph. Many of these loitering, meandering motorists feel that 70 mph is a casual suggestion.
What makes this even more frustrating is the truckers that whip out into the passing lane to get around another truck. But these metallic mastodons don’t have enough get up and go, so it sometimes takes a mile to pass one single vehicle. In the meantime, the line behind that truck in the left lane has become a bump drafting, NASCAR like row of cars all riding each other’s bumper at 75 mph.
Something has to be done. There needs to be a law. There is a law! But nobody follows them, nobody cares.
Well if it is going to be survival of the fittest out on the asphalt, then I suggest the following:
Since we cannot build a separate highway for trucks, I would like to mandate that trucks drive to the right, always, without exception.
I would also like to offer a warning to all meandering idiots who saunter along in the passing lane, deliberately driving at a snail’s pace to infuriate others who want to get somewhere;
Be warned: I am going to drive up on your bumper. My brights will be on. My horn may be blowing. I am going to be big and aggressive and fill up your rear view mirror. I am frustrated by your lack of driving etiquette so I am going to drive with a little burr under my saddle. If my middle finger is extended and drool dripping from my lips, you will just have to deal with it.
Here is my simple law: Drive safe and Drive Courteous. Drive to the right and pass to the left. If you are a truck, stay to the right.
It’s not crazy, it’s the law.